Mrs. Luz Van Cromphout

Professor Van Cromphout earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Ghent in Belgium. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota with a dissertation titled Emerson’s Eroica: A Study of His Idea of Greatness. After receiving his Ph.D., Van Cromphout returned to Belgium, where he taught for two years at the University of Ghent. In 1968, he came to NIU, where he taught American literature and literary criticism until his death in 2005. In 1979 he was awarded the university’s Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award.Professor Van Cromphout specialized in comparative literature with a particular expertise in American transcendentalism. He was a productive scholar who published more than 25 journal articles and two books, Emerson’s Modernity and the Example of Goethe (University of Missouri Press) and Emerson’s Ethics (University of Missouri Press). He was devoted to students and was highly involved in service to NIU at the department, college, and university levels. Those who knew him well admired his intellect, warmth, integrity, and humor.